Kellogg's To Close Vadnais Heights Distribution Center, Lay Off 200+ Workers
VADNAIS HEIGHTS, Minn. (WCCO) -- Workers in Vadnais Heights are digesting unexpected news about their jobs with a well-known food maker.
Kellogg's informed the state to prepare for a glut of layoffs this summer when it closes one of its snack-food distribution sites. More than 200 people will be out of jobs.
Look around and you see it everywhere - Americans are striving to live healthier. From how we exercise to what we eat, and that's putting traditional snack foods on notice.
Kellogg's is a major supplier of snack foods like CheezIts, Nutri-grain bars and Keebler cookies to name just a few. But how it gets those products to store shelves is about to change.
And that's bad news to the 216 employees of the Vadnais Heights direct store delivery site.
"You have layoffs in good economies and bad economies," Jeremy Hanson Willis with DEED said.
Jeremy Hanson Willis is deputy commissioner of Minnesota's Department of Employment and Economic Development. The agency just received a federally-mandated letter from Kellogg's, informing the state of an impending mass layoff.
"And that really helps us to be able to immediately step in and be able to provide support and services to the people affected by the layoff," Willis said.
Kellogg's says the shutdown is needed to trim $475 million and make the company more efficient. Displaced workers will get state help finding jobs in an economy where good workers can be hard to find.
"There are a lot of businesses around the state looking for workers and having a hard time to employ them because we have so few unemployed folks in our state," Willis said.
The layoffs are expected this summer in both July and August.
